In a typical fill and package apparatus for sliced food products, a slicer delivers groups of slices or “drafts” onto a conveyor. The drafts are conveyed spaced-apart in a stream to a staging conveyor where the stream is converted to lateral rows of drafts. Such a staging conveyor is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,810,149 and is commercially available as the A*180 Autoloader from Formax, Inc. of Mokena, Ill., U.S.A.
The rows of drafts are delivered by the staging conveyor to a packaging machine where the rows are deposited sequentially into pockets formed in a moving lower web of film. The rows are deposited while the film is advancing to a dwell position. At the dwell position, the packaging machine stops the motion of the lower web. During the dwell time period, at a downstream sealing station, downstream according to a direction of movement of the lower web of film, the packaging machine seals an upper web of film to the lower web of film after the drafts are placed in the pockets, and then trims the completed packages from the webs. Upstream of the sealing station, upstream according to a direction of movement of the lower web of film, the packaging machine also forms another group of empty pockets during the dwell time period. After the dwell time period is over the lower web of film is advanced and new drafts are deposited into new pockets as the lower web advances to a new dwell position. The dwell time period is longer than the film advance time period for a typical operating cycle, approximately 80% dwell time period compared to 20% film advance time period.
Loading stacks or drafts into the pockets during the advance time period is a time efficient way to load the pockets. Once the row of drafts is staged up onto the end of the staging conveyor, the advancement of the staging conveyor is synchronized with the packaging machine film advance to deposit the drafts into the pockets row-by-row.
However, the present inventors have recognized that “fluff” or “bunch” type products sometimes need to be re-collected correctly in the pockets of the lower web to ensure a neat and compact filling. These products are thin sliced “piles” that resemble hand produced deli portions. They do not “stage” well, as the piles produced by the slicer can tend to elongate during transportation on the conveyors from the slicing machine to the packaging machine.
The present inventors have recognized that it would be desirable to provide a filling and packaging apparatus that neatly and economically fills and packages drafts of thin sliced food product.